


A Run-in

by malatruse



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Background Femslash, Blood Kink, Body Horror, M/M, Post-Recall, Self-Harm, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-01-21 14:47:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12459996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malatruse/pseuds/malatruse
Summary: Not long after Recall, Talon agent Reaper unexpectedly returns to Watchpoint: Gibraltar.





	1. First Run-in

**Author's Note:**

> Between starting this fic and now, a) Reaper's consume souls ability was replaced with health leeching, b) Mercy's ult was totally changed, and c) Moira was introduced, so this fic has its fair share of inconsistencies, though I've done my best to minimize them.

He’s walking past the hangar when the alarms start up, and simultaneously his comm shorts out and the sound of gunfire echoes across the base. McCree’s used to combat, has been his whole life, but here, in a secret base on Gibraltr barely a week after recall, he’d thought he’d be as safe as anywhere. His first instinct, cowardly as it is, is to just run; he’s got his gun and his skin, and hell, he’s run with less before. But this time it’s not just him in danger, it’s _Lena_ , it’s Ms. Vaswani who trekked up all the way from India, even Genji’s grim brother from Japan. So, instead of turning tail like he wants to, he heads toward the hanger, drawing Peacekeeper as he goes. If he can cut through, if he can reach Winston, if he can find out what’s going on—

Shots ring out across the hangar. He hears yelling, though he can’t identify the voices. It’s all echoes blurring together as he runs, trips, stumbles up again. Reaches the next section just in time to see black smoke twist and gather into humanoid form.

Now, Jesse McCree will be the first to say he’s seen some unbelievable things. But what he’s seeing now isn’t like Jack’s supersoldier healing, or Lena’s chronal dissociation, or even Ms. Vaswani’s hard light arm thingy. No, a being mashed together out of smoke, suddenly shooting a hundred pounds of buckshot every which way, that’s something else. It’s downright inhuman.

After the first shot he’d taken cover, and he’s certain anyone else with any sense had, too. In the dull quiet following the last shot, he raises his head just enough to see over the crate he’s crouched behind. The only noises he can make out are muffled, maybe nothing more than the ringing in his ears. Right here and now, there’s only him and the figure in black. Who is staring right at him, the eyeholes of the bone white mask burning right through him. It drops the spent shotguns, and before the clatter of hard metal hitting the floor has died down, McCree knows what he needs to do.

He hasn’t done this in a long time. Pretty conspicuous for a man laying low. But never in his life has he forgotten how. With practiced speed he brings up Peacekeeper and closes his left eye, and somewhere underneath his sweat and his panic and that whisper of _C’mon, c’mon, let’s go,_ he feels things click into place. Feels the world shrink to just one point, just one red dot homing in on that gleaming skull. Dead to rights, like his old Deadlock buddies used to say.

Time stops. He pulls the trigger.

The figure stumbles back, sinks to its knees. McCree just about collapses, himself. He holsters Peacekeeper and brings a hand up to cover his eye, which is beginning to throb just like it always does, just like he’d shot his own self through the eye.

A rusty groan brings him back to the here and now. The figure in black is moving, bringing a hand up to claw at the cracked remains of its mask. Pulls it off, gets to its feet. Looks straight at him with the face of his dead CO, the shrapnel in its face leaking smoke and black ooze.

“What’s the matter, McCree? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” It takes a step towards him, and everything in McCree is telling him to take an equal step back, to in fact run the other way and keep on running. Instead he stands frozen, rooted in place.

“Or maybe,” the impossible figure of Gabriel Reyes says, moving closer, “A dead man.”

McCree almost laughs, but all he can manage is a choked breath. Instead he lets his hand drop from his eye—already dripping blood hot and wet down his face—to his gun.

Reyes falters at the sight of his eye, and wildly McCree realizes he’d never seen him like this. The idea seems ridiculous, but he’s already wasted his one attempt at a laugh. He brings Peacekeeper up and shoots the spectre of Reyes right in the chest.

He makes a pained noise, and steps back, and McCree decides that’s his cue to leave. He turns and runs, tearing across the hangar like it’s his job, but before he can even reach the next section he’s cut off by a thick vortex of black smoke, and a familiar figure appearing in front of him.

This time he doesn’t hesitate, but fans the hammer all the way up his chest, but he can see before the last bullet leaves the barrel that only one or two of the shots actually connected, because all he’s got standing in front of him is smoke. Smoke that laughs as it reattaches its chipped mask and says, “Your time has come, McCree.”

And McCree remembers a story he heard once, about a man running from a fight, only the man didn’t know that he’d been fatally wounded and was bleeding out with every step he took, every step he took just digging him deeper into the ground. And with a sudden clarity, McCree is sure that he too is dying, only, from what? Fear, maybe; his body’s locked up again and his heart is beating fit to burst. Reyes raises his gun, and suddenly it all seems so clear.

Then everything is eclipsed by an angry roar as Winston rushes in with his tesla cannon, and McCree lets himself sink to his knees, feeling for all the world like all the blood’s been drained right out of him.

~

The next thing he’s aware of is sitting on a cot in Angela’s hospital wing, taking his vitals and murmuring quietly in German. Back in the glory days, he’d’ve known what half those words meant, but these days he’s happy if he could remember enough English and Spanish to get by.

“...should know better than to use such a dangerous ability so recklessly,” she’s saying, in English this time. He nods, which messes up whatever she’s doing with the flashlight and his eyelids, and she huffs in annoyance.

“Well, other than that there’s nothing new wrong with you.” He bristles at the _new_ , though she says it with a quirk of her lip which he knows means she’s joking. Mostly joking. Probably. “I’m sure Winston will want to debrief you immediately, but given the circumstances, I’m sure I can convince him to give you until tomorrow to recover.

“’Preciate it,” he says, heaving himself to his feet. “All of it.” Angela turns back from her comm to look at him curiously. “I mean it, thanks doc. Figure I don’t say it enough.” That gets him a warm smile, before she shoos him out into the waiting room. Fareeha is there, not looking injured but definitely looking worried, and she can only spare him a quick nod before stepping past him and shutting the door.

Back in his quarters—not the same as when he was serving here as Blackwatch, thankfully—he sets his serape on the bed and drops his hat down on top of it. Pulls out a cigarillo, lights it, manages one strong lungful before the sight of the smoke gets to him and he snuffs it out, exhaling messily. Through the small window above his bed he can see the sun setting over the ocean, huge and orange and getting swallowed up by the sea.

He thinks about what he’s going to say to Winston in his debriefing. How he saw a deceased Blackwatch commander open fire on former Overwatch agents—and who had been there? Angela, Torbjörn, who else?—before turning into black smoke? No. No, no way in hell.

_Maybe I am already dead,_ he thinks, and feels that old pull, the one that’s been there since before he left Blackwatch. A pull that leads him outside after the sun has set, to stand shivering on the cliffside staring down at black water crashing against the rocks below. He wants to...he doesn’t want to. He could.

“If you’re real,” he says, words nearly drowned out by the waves, “If it was really you back there, gimme a sign.” He waits, wind whipping at his bare shoulders, but minutes pass without anything. For a moment, he thinks he hears something like the hiss of smoke, but when he turns around to look, there’s nothing there. He wants to scream. Instead he heads back inside.

Back in his room, he studies Peacekeeper, turning her over in both hands. One shot to the head didn’t always kill somebody, he knows. Too easy to fuck up a shot to the side of the head. He checks the ammo, slots in a fresh round. Looks down the barrel. Thinks about some of the lives he’s ended over the years with this exact same view. Clicks the safety off.

A hand closes around his wrist, pulling it back and twisting until he loses his grip on the gun. He looks up, sees Reyes standing there holding Peacekeeper, one gloved hand still firmly on his arm. Reyes flips the safety back on, sets the gun on the bedside table. Looks at McCree real hard.

“Hey, boss,” McCree says after the silence gets unbearable.

“Didn’t think I’d ever have to worry about this from _you_ , McCree.” His voice is a dry rasp. Like he hasn’t had a sip of water in the armful of years since he’d died.

“Funny, comin’ from a man who tried to kill me just today.”

Reyes scoffs. “If something like _that_ could kill you, you’re not the agent I thought you were.” He lets go of McCree’s wrist, and McCree tucks it close, massaging the blood back into it with his left hand. Looks up in time to see Reyes’ masked face tilted towards the new appendage.

“Well, you’re right, I’m not any kinda agent no more.” He flexes his fingers, and can’t see but feels Reyes’ eyes follow the movement. “Whaddaya think? Pretty neat, huh?” McCree brings up his left arm, bending at the elbow in a sorry imitation of a flex. “Thought you might like the skull.”

Reyes’ hand snaps out to grab him by the metal hand, squeezing hard enough to set off the pain sensors. “What is _this?_ ” he snaps, ripping the mask off his face. “What the hell did you do to yourself? _”_ He tugs hard enough to just about pull McCree off the bed.

“...Long story.”McCree tugged his arm out of Reyes’ grasp. “What’re you here for then? Run out of more important people to haunt?”

Shaking his head, Reyes scans the room, frowning at the mess clothes dumped haphazardly on the floor. “I came for revenge. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“Revenge against who? You’re the one who blew up the Swiss base, or that’s what they’re sayin’, anyway.”

“Morrison. Amari. Ziegler.” He ticks off the names on his clawed fingers. “Lindholm. Wilhelm. Everyone in Overwatch who sat there and threw us to the dogs.”

“Hate to break it to ya, but Jack an’ Ana are long dead. You can take them off your kill list, let em rest in peace.”

Reyes laughs. “Is that what they told you? Don’t count on it. Those two won’t rest in peace until I do, and I’ve proven to be very hard to kill.”

McCree finds himself agreeing with that. “Sure does seem like you’re either damn tough or damn lucky these days. Thought I’d perfected my Deadeye. Never missed the shot at that range before.”

“You didn’t miss,” Reyes says.

“Damn tough then.”

There’s a knock on the door, and before McCree can so much as open his mouth, Reyes is smoke again, slipping out through a crack in the window frame. He waits until nothing of the man is left, then says, “C’mon in.”

It’s Angela. “I just wanted to see how you were feeling. Athena told me your heart rate was elevated a little while ago.”

“Just feelin’ a little strained over someone gettin’ into our base like that, is all.” He gives her a hopefully-reassuring smile, and receives one in return.

“I’ll let you rest, then.”

“Just one moment, doc.” McCree stands up, and Angela pauses in the doorway. “If you knew something important ‘bout what happened at HQ, you’d tell me, right?”

He sees Angela’s eyes widen in surprise, watches her hesitate just a moment too long before she says, “Of course. And you would do the same, I hope.” She looks back at him unblinkingly, challengingly.

“Doubt I know anythin’ you don’t, seein’ as I wasn’t there.”

“Have a good night, McCree.” The door shuts, leaving him alone with his thoughts.


	2. Intermission

It’s a good year before he sees Reyes again, but far less than that before the man’s suspicions prove justified. Only three months after his debrief with Winston, in which he describes seeing a smoke man in a white mask and Winston corroborates with his reports of Talon operative Reaper, he’s seeing another face straight outta the grave.

“You don’t seem surprised,” Jack Morrison wheezes as McCree drags him behind cover and slips the visor back over his face.

“Guess I’m not. If anything, I’m relieved, cuz this means Ana’s probably out there somewhere too.”

Morrison shakes his head ruefully, lets McCree set up a biotic field, and carefully doesn’t answer.

“Do the others know?”

“Angela. Winston. The others don’t need to know.”

The rapid-fire pop of machine guns rings out on the other side of the factory. McCree draws Peacekeeper, checks her for damage, makes sure she’s fully loaded. “You sure that’s a good idea? Better they hear it from you thank from someone else.” He raises his head just long enough to set sights on one of the Talon agents and pull the trigger before ducking down again. Morrison is watching him, and even with the mask back on, McCree can _feel_ his deep-set frown.

“Is that a threat, McCree?”

_Well, at least he’s dropped the ‘kid.’_ “Naw, I may not be too tactical minded, but I’m smart enough not to threaten a supersoldier who’s got the trust of my teammates.” He checks the hallway again, finds it clear, for the moment. “Just offerin’ you a warning, is all. Now let’s get a move-on before they regroup.”

He feels Morrison watching him. Like, maybe _you’re not so dumb after all_. If the man doesn’t already know about Reyes and Ana, McCree’s not about to tell him. And if he does, well, the man’s not gonna put McCree in his good books for bringing them up.

The two of them manage to make it out without too much damage, and to regroup with Pharah once they get outside. McCree spends the ride home trying his damndest not to turn to her and say, H _ey, that guy? That’s Jack Morrison!_

When they get back to base Angela is waiting for them, shifting from foot to foot. “Is Fareeha with you? There’s, ah, there is someone here who wishes to speak to her.”

Fareeha steps forward with questions, and Angela takes her aside. McCree has his guesses about what she’s saying, and sure enough, when Fareeha shoulders past Angela at a dead run, Angela turns to Morrison.“It’s Ana. And, ah, she’s asking for you by name.”

~

After that, Angela has to come clean about her part in things. McCree listens with the others as she describes the bombing at HQ, and what happened afterward—to Morrison, and especially to Reyes. Her part in his... _imbalance,_ as she calls it. Like breathing out smoke and taking a bullet to the head are things that can be corrected with a handful of pills and a positive attitude. The others clamor with disbelief, with questions. McCree doesn’t even bother to look surprised. Instead he watches Ana’s expression: at some parts concerned, but otherwise the same as him.

He pulls Ana aside after the briefing.

“I’m glad to see you looking well, Jesse.”

“Same to you, ma’am.” Even with all the questions burning in his gut, he can’t help but bask in the smile she gives him. Like she used to, like the past handful of years never happened. But...

“I need to ask you somethin’,” he says, and her expression turns serious. “Did you know about Reyes?”

She nods. “I did. I’m sorry, Jesse.”

“It ain’t me you should be apologisin’ to.”

Ana squints at him with her visible eye, and he doesn’t know what she sees when she looks at him. “You have a strange sense of responsibility. But, next time I see Gabriel, I’ll offer him my apologies.” With that she claps him on the shoulder, strides across the room to where Morrison and Winston are conversing quiet and heated.

Next he looks for Angela, finds her edging out of the room.

When she sees him coming, she sighs and says, “I supposed I owe you an explanation.”

“’Spose you do.”

“How long have you known for?”

“Since the day I fought him.” He doesn’t mention the fact that he might not have known if he hadn’t seen the man without his mask. He doesn’t mention the fear-induced conviction that he was simply losing his mind. He absolutely doesn’t mention that Reyes showed up in his room after that.

“It might seem...unethical, what I’ve done, but I couldn’t leave Gabriel to die, I thought, any kind of life would be better than that.”

McCree shakes his head. “It’s not bringin’ him back I have a problem with, it’s what happened after that. Him runnin’ off to Talon, and you sayin’ nothin’ about it.”

She purses her lips, hackles raised, and for a moment he thinks she’ll argue, but then she deflates. “I thought, with time, he would come back. I thought—I hoped—that when he did I could perfect my design. And fix my mistakes.” Her eyes stray to Morrison and Winston, then snap back to focus on McCree. “But Overwatch was shut down, Gabriel was presumed dead, and I had no way to find him. When I heard about the actions of the Talon agent Reaper, I realized it was him. Why he was— _is_ —doing those things, I didn’t know, but at least I knew he was still alive.”

“So what now? He attacked us, more’n once. What happens next time, y’kill him? Or try to subdue him?”

She shakes her head. “I would try to heal him if I could, but I don’t think he can be subdued,” she says, not looking at him, “Or killed, for that matter.”

“We may not know,” Morrison says, turning just his head towards them, “but I bet Talon does.”


	3. Second Run-in

They knew it would be difficult, raiding a Talon base, knew that even with UN sanctions (everything above the board this time around) there was still a chance it would blow up in their faces. But as McCree limps away from the wreckage of the transport, he muses that he wasn’t expecting it to be so _literal_.

No extraction. No comms working. No backup coming. He has no idea what happened to the others, and God, he wishes for the thousandth time he’d had Ana watching his back. But as soon as she heard Widowmaker’d been spotted around Lijang she’d headed over there no questions asked and no answers given.

McCree crouches around the side of the building and waits. He’s not sure what he’s waiting for—to be discovered, for his leg to hold his weight again, or just for his heart to stop beating so hard. It feels like he’s run a mile, and he might as well have with how the three of them have been running back and forth since they got here and found talon waiting for them. It was McCree, Angela “needs to stick her nose in everything” Ziegler, and one of the new hires. Shadow or something. Said she could hack into Talon’s databases, said she could hack the doors open too. He’s starting to get the feeling that maybe her info wasn’t as legit as they thought it was.

There’s a noise to his left, and he tenses. He’s down to one flashbang and the six bullets currently inside peacekeeper. Barring that, he’s still got his fists and hasn’t yet forgotten how to fight dirty. And there’s always the Deadeye, he reasons, though it feels like if he tries to use it now he might pass out.

The noise consolidates into footsteps, and he grudgingly hauls himself to his feet, one hand on the flashbang and the other on his gun. Around the corner come five masked Talon agents, and he gets as far as, “Oh, _shit,”_ before he’s down.

~

He wakes up chained to a dingy motel bed, gun gone but still wearing his hat. Sitting across the room from him is Reyes, unmasked but otherwise wearing the same all-black getup as the last time they ran into each other.

McCree sits up as much as he can with his hands cuffed behind him. “Hey, boss. We gotta stop meeting like this.” He smiles lopsidedly, but Reyes just narrows his eyes.

“If I were really your boss, you wouldn’t be mouthing off at me.”

That gets a laugh out of him. “If you really believe that, they musta wiped your memories of Blackwatch completely. Never could get me to shut up.” Hi eyes drift, taking in Reyes’ armor, ammo belts—why does he need ammo if he tosses his guns away to reload?—and catch on the clear Blackwatch symbology emblazoned all over him, from boots to belt and even his mask. Wonders if the man still thinks he’s on some sort of mission that’ll somehow benefit humanity. 

Reyes still hasn’t answered his comment, which McCree takes as an invitation to keep talking. “This’s the third time we’ve run into each other, and y’haven’t killed me yet. Any reason for that, aside from my devilish good looks?”

“Talon wants you.”

It’s not the answer McCree is expecting. “ _Talon_ does? You sure about that?”

Reyes sighs, half-rolls his eyes in a way McCree is deeply familiar with. “Talon wants you dead, unless you’re willing to cooperate.”

“So Talon wants me dead.”

Reyes hisses. He’s on his feet in an instant. “You’re not _listening,_ McCree. Overwatch is doomed to fail, even if I have to dismantle it brick by brick. You’re a known sympathizer. They won’t let you disappear into the woodwork again, you either join Talon or you’re dead.”

“Not happenin’.” Behind his back he’s already working at the cuffs around his wrists.

Reyes comes closer. “Don’t do this, McCree. Use your head. For once in your _fucking_ life—“ He catches himself, reigning in the smoke already starting to leak out from his mouth and under his coat.

McCree steels himself. Gets ready to do something he’d been hoping he wouldn’t have to do. “You never did get around to teachin’ me everything you knew,” he says, “so I had to teach myself a few things to compensate. Like not givin’ in to peer pressure. And _this._ ” And his left arm comes free from the cuff, swings up to point palm-out at Reyes.

It’s not the first prosthetic he’d bought after the loss of his arm, or even the fifth. But it _is_ the best. State-of-the-art stuff. Custom-fitted for a wealthy businessman who just happened to have McCree’s exact proportions and needs. It does everything his old arm did, and one other thing it didn’t.

McCree lets his right eyelid droop, focusing all his energy on his left side. Feels time slow as the Deadeye clicks on. Fires the projectile embedded in his cybernetic arm.

The world flashed white, and he hears Reyes screaming. McCree shakes his head, trying to shake out the ringing in his ears as he wrestles his right wrist out of the other cuff. Talon will be on them soon; if the shot didn’t tip them off then his former commander’s grating screech would. His left hand’s ruined, hanging limp from the elbow down. The pain sensors did their job and shut off automatically, and thank God for small mercies, but now he’s down an arm.

He lurches off the bed, past Reyes, finding Peacekeeper on the small table next to the white Reaper mask. Holstering the gun makes him feel a little more together, and he strides to the grimy window, peering out to try and get a bead on their locale.

A plain street sits below, not a brick wall or a one-way mirror or whatever the hell he’d been expecting. Heart hammering, he crosses the room to the door, pulls it open just far enough to peer out. He sees ugly plastered walls, a short carpet with bleach-stained patches, rows of identical-looking doors.

McCree shuts the door, slides the bolt into place. “Damn, Reyes,” he says appreciatively. “You bring me to an honest-to-God motel?” No answer from Reyes, who’s no longer howling but still sits sprawled on the floor, clutching his face, black smoke roiling from between his gloved fingers. McCree feels a pang of regret, sick and acrid in his mouth. Squashes it down long enough to kneel by Reyes’ side, checking him over for bugs or trackers. Finds none.

“Shit, wish I’d known, I wouldn’t’a shot you. Not in the face, anyway.” He sits and watches Reyes slowly start to heal, his own pain forgotten until Reyes lifts his hands away from his head, turning to look at McCree with black eyes shining. Until Reyes leans forward and wipes the blood from McCree’s cheek with one gloved finger and then pops the finger into his mouth.

McCree’s stomach flipflops at about the same time his eye starts hurting again. Shit, he really should not have used the Deadeye like that. He tries to bring his hand up to shield his eye, but it’s his left hand, and all he gets is a good look at how badly it’s broken. “ _Shit_ ,” he says again. “Wasted my Hail Mary on a guy who wasn’t even gonna kill me.”

“Don’t test me,” Reyes murmurs, and immediately slumps against him. “Regenerating like this doesn’t come easy.”

McCree chuckles. “That why you’re drinkin’ my blood?”

That makes Reyes scowl. “You make me sound like a vampire.”

“I guess that means you ain’t one?”

“Vampires don’t exist, McCree,” he explains in his ‘long-suffering mentor’ voice. God, McCree thought he’d never thought he’d be hearing that again. Now that he is, he’s remembering how annoying it is.

“Then a guy who comes back from the dead and eats folks must be a zombie.”

Reyes laughs. “You’re not quite wrong there. I’m not human anymore.”

“Aw, give it a rest, Reyes. Angela told me what she did to save you—“

He’s jolted as Reyes tries to get to his feet. “ _Save_ me—“

McCree stands too, helping Reyes up and hauling him towards the bed. “Now, listen. Angela kept you from dyin’, which in her book is the same thing.” He tries to set Reyes down as firmly as he can without bodily throwing him. “It don’t sound no different than what they did to you in the SEP.” He stops. “Shit, _Angela_! Did Talon get her?”

Reyes shakes his head. “She’s my target, I wouldn’t let them take her down.”

He refrains from commenting on how backwards that sounds. “There was another agent with us—“

“Who, Sombra? She was one of ours from the beginning. What, you really couldn’t tell?”

McCree shakes his head. “ _Sombra—_ shit, I must be gettin’ old.”

“You all have gotten soft without me,” Reyes says with a sardonic grin.

“So come back.”

Reyes shakes his head again, picks at the flecks of skin and dried blood flaking off his face. “I can’t. Even if I decided to forgive them, I can’t.”

McCree wants to hit something. He settles for crossing his arms over his chest. “Oh yeah, why not _?_ ”

It takes Reyes a long time to answer, but McCree can be patient. Finally he says, “I can’t abandon Amélie.”

All of McCree’s anger evaporates. “Amélie...LaCroix? She’s still alive?”

Reyes snorts. “They didn’t tell you about her, either? You didn’t think it odd that after killing her husband and disappearing a Talon operative named Widowmaker appeared?”

McCree shakes his head in wonderment. “God, Ana, she’s over in China right now chasin’ after her. Did she know? Why didn’t she tell us?”

“Did you tell anyone who I was, after you saw my face?”

His eye is still throbbing. “Fair enough,” he says, suddenly not feeling up to arguing. “Help me get this arm off.”

Reyes reaches over and feels for the catches. He fumbles a bit, unfamiliar with the mechanism, and McCree watches his brow furrow in concentration. “How’d this happen?” he asks when it finally comes off.

“You’d disown me if I told ya,” McCree says.  He flops back onto the bed, watches Reyes cautiously lie down next to him. “Does Talon know we’re here?”

Reyes shakes his head. He’s staring at the ceiling. Every exhale lets out a little puff of smoke. “I’m so tired, McCree,” he says after a minute.

“Well then go ahead and rest. I’ll watch yer back.”

Reyes sighs, expression incredulous, but he shuts his eyes anyway. McCree watches him start to relax, breathing starts to deepen, feels himself start to do the same.

And maybe at some point his eyes start to drift shut, but he’d swear they were open when he feels a tremor all down his back like someone just walked over his grave.

He stays motionless, trying to figure out what woke him: the room is as quiet as ever, which is to say filled with the familiar background noises of a cheap motel. He glances up and out the window, sees a flash of light from the high-rise a few blocks away. Immediately he’s pushing himself up and grabbing Reyes by the arm, hauling him away from the window.

Half a second later the windowpane shatters and the pillow Reyes was laying on has a neat hole through it. The room smells like burning cotton and stinking city air.

“Thought you said Talon didn’t know we were here?”

Reyes growls, yanking his mask off the table. “I thought they didn’t.”

“Awright, that settles it, we’re going, _now_.” McCree’s hand is already on his comm, thankfully now fully charged and in range. No doubt Athena already had a bead on his location; probably the only reason he hadn’t already been extracted was because he hadn’t given the go-ahead, as per the usual covert ops rulebook. He’d have to remember to make a note about that if— _when_ —he got back to base.

“I never agreed to go with you,” Reyes says, and McCree snorts.

“Seein’ as your own people just tried to kill you, I’d say you don’t have anywhere better to be.”

“It might not be Talon,” Reyes protests weakly.

McCree’s already putting himself to rights, hat on, Peacekeeper holstered. “Athena, you there?”

“ _It’s good to hear from you again, Agent McCree_.”

“Great, we need an evac, asap.” He opens the door, grabs Reyes by the arm and drags him out of the room and down the hall.

Athena actually hesitates. “ _Agent McCree, am I to assume that you are requesting transportation for yourself and the individual with you, who is currently classified as a dangerous Talon agent and enemy of Overwatch?_ ”

“Ain’t no place better, darlin’,” he mutters, twisting to look back at Reyes. “You gonna take point? Seein’ as you actually know how we got in here?”

Reyes pulls his arm out of McCree’s grasp. “Do you really think this is going to work?”

Behind them, the sound of glass breaking as someone breaches the window of the room they were just in. “Now’s really not the best time so, beggin’ your pardon sir, could you fucking take point until Athena lets us know where we’re going?”

A pause, and then Reyes is storming past him, not waiting to see if he’s following. Which of course he is, because when _hasn’t_ he followed after Reyes like a lost dog?


	4. Second Run-in, Continued

Athena comes through with the transport, touching down just long enough for them to get inside before taking off again. McCree flops down onto one of the seats, looks up to find Reyes still standing, head scanning his surroundings like he can’t quite believe it. It makes something in McCree’s stomach clench.

“Y’better tell me what happened with at the Swiss base, before we get back.”

Reyes scoffs, crosses his arms. “I tried to kill Jack and myself, and ended up as a monster for my efforts. What more do you need to know?”

McCree rubs his forehead with his hand, wishes he had a drink. “Maybe we can start at the beginnin’? Like, why’d you want to kill him?” _And yourself?_ he thinks, but doesn’t ask.

The transport jolts, and Reyes finally sits down, across from McCree. There’s only a few feet between them, but the distance still feels impenetrable.

“I don’t know when it started. I was right in the middle of it but too close up to see it going on. The things we did in Blackwatch. The reasons why you left. And Jack covering it up with a nod and a smile.” His metal claws clink and he folds his fingers. “We expanded too fast, and lost control of the organization _we_ founded. And the ones we were trying to stop...well...they were already inside it.

“When I finally saw the truth it was through one of my own men. Well, women. If Overwatch was the surface, Blackwatch was the deep water, and below that...Talon. The people I trusted, working to undo all the good we’d done! There was no kind of purge that would get rid of the blight. Any agent could have been a traitor, or a sleeper.

“So no, I wasn’t brainwashed by Talon. They wanted me to kill Jack because he wasn’t obedient enough. They wanted me to take his place. I accepted job the because I wanted that fucking asshole dead; I didn’t expect to live through it, as long as I could get my revenge. Of course, I failed. But I made sure there was nothing left behind for them to bend to their purposes. Or so I thought.”

He falls silent, shoulders hunched. Brooding.

“So why’d you go and join ‘em, then?” McCree asks when it’s clear that Reyes is done talking. And yeah, maybe he also needs a second to swallow all that.

“Because that bitch Ziegler brought me back as this... _thing_. I have to kill to keep myself alive now. I could have joined any of the shady groups that sprung up in the rubble of Overwatch’s fall, but I chose Talon because I remembered something they told me. About a woman who killed her husband and felt nothing.”

McCree nods in understanding. “And y’wanted, what, to save her?”

Reyes shakes his head. “I didn’t think she could be saved. At the time I saw her as another person who had been betrayed by Overwatch. And I didn’t want her to be alone.”

“Well mission accomplished, I reckon. How’s she doing these days?”

“She’s been...volatile lately. It’s not something I can help her with.”

They lapse into silence again. This time Reyes is the one to break it.

“There’s no way in hell they’re going to let me anywhere near the watchpoint, if someone sensible like Morrison or Amari’s there.”

McCree snorts. “I ain’t never obeyed authority before and I damn well ain’t about to start. You’re out with Talon now, like it or not. I’ll sneak you up to my room if I have to, but either way you’re layin’ low for a while, y’hear me?”

Reyes sneers back at him. “And what, you’ll bring back animals for me to butcher? Or better yet, endanger your friends?”

“It’s really gotta be like that? Y’gotta kill all the time?”

“If I just say _yes_ will you drop it?”

McCree shakes his head.

“When it first happened I tried to find less _lethal_ alternatives. Didn’t work.”

“Well sure but you’re more experienced now, y’don’t think it’s possible you—“

Reyes stands, stalks forward to tower over him. “And what exactly are you offering, McCree? To let me beat you within an inch of your life? What kind of weak fool did I train you to be?”

Before he can respond, the ship rocks dangerously, causing Reyes to stumble.

Over the loudspeaker Athena’s voice chimes, “ _Please remain seated until we reach our destination”._

McCree  chuckles. “Better listen to her, boss, or we won’t even make it to Gibraltar.”

Reyes glares at him for a for a long moment, then sits, arms crossed, deliberately looking away.

They wait.


	5. A Return

Let it never be said that McCree is a man without a plan. And maybe the plan is ridiculous, or thought up at the last minute, but at least it’s there.

So when he steps out of the transport next to Reaper and finds himself at the point of several guns, at least it’s according to plan.

“This is the last time I listen to you, cowboy,” Reyes says, and McCree laughs.

“Missed hearin’ that from you, boss.” He straightens up to address the crowd—seems like Athena told the whole base they were coming. There’s Jack in front, Winston next to him and Mei peeking out behind them. And in the back there’s Fareeha, looking like she was in the middle of an argument with Reinhard and Torbjorn. He can’t see Genji or Hanzo, but that’s kinda their thing, so he assumes they’re watching from out of sight somewhere. No sign of the others.

“Now I know what y’all must be thinkin,’” he starts, holding up his hands. Or at least hand, singular. Next to him Reyes makes a derisive noise. He’d insisted on keeping his mask on, for his ‘dignity’ or something.

Jack cuts in immediately. “No, what are _you_ thinking, McCree? Bringing him here?”

“Now hold on, we’re just here to talk to....uh, where’s Angela?”

“ _Agent Tracer went to retrieve her_ ,” Athena chimes in helpfully.

_“Immer unterbricht mich jemand bei der Arbeit...”_ Angela looks up as she approaches, tugged along by Lena. “Oh good, you’ve got the other one. Bring him in please, I might as well look at them both at once.”

Reyes steps forward immediately, paying no mind to Morrison’s pulse rifle following his movement. “Amélie’s here?”

“Ana managed to retrieve her, yes. Now, if you—“ but Reyes is already pushing past her, McCree following at a loping jog. There are protests behind them, but he’s pretty sure Angela would smooth things out. Well, kind of sure. Probably.

He reaches the medbay in time to see Reyes kneeling by Amélie’s side, the two of them murmuring quietly to each other. Ana’s there too, leaning up against the counter opposite the hospital bed. Her arm’s in a cast but she seems calm. Untroubled. She nods at McCree when he enters, but her gaze quickly moves back to Amélie.

Amélie’s hair is down, a white bandage wrapped around her forehead. She looks small in the paper gown they gave her, even though it’s less revealing than her normal getup. McCree tries to remember her as she was before Talon got her, but all he can come up with is, _like this, but less blue_. Not like they ever talked much to begin with; he hadn’t even known her name until after she went missing.

She’s saying something to Reyes that sounds like French, and he answers her in Spanish: _yes, it’s real, look,_ and he’s taking off his mask off. So much for that dignity he wanted to maintain, because his lip is trembling and Angela’s in the doorway, Jack and Lena behind her, and oh, Genji’s there too .

McCree sidles over to the doctor. “She gonna be okay?”

Angela sighs. “That remains to be seen. Talon’s experimentation on her was extensive. I was able to disarm the few failsafes and trackers I found, but there’s not telling whether I missed any.” She turns to look at him full on for the first time, brows creasing. “McCree, your eye...”

He touches below it gingerly, shrugs his shoulders. “I, uh, might’ve screwed up a bit,” he says.

Mercy straightens up, swinging around sharply. If she were wearing her Valkyrie suit, her wings would’ve just shot straight out. “Everyone not currently injured, out! That means you, Jack, and you too, Fareeha. I promise I can take care of myself. I have patients to deal with!”

She herds McCree to the next bed over, carefully avoiding Reyes, still kneeling between it and Amélies’. Apparently her instincts to shuffle people out don’t include an unarmed but still dangerous Talon agent.

After a cursory check of his arm, Angela moves up to his eye, examining it with a grimace. “ _Verdammt_ , McCree, what happened to the biotics I gave you before the mission? This is...” she switches to German, speaking rapidly under her breath. After a few minutes she pauses long enough to get a healing compress on his eye.

“So what’s the prognosis, doc?” He tries for a smile, but the bottom of the compress has stiffened up to the point where it’s hard to move his cheek that way.

Angela shakes her head. “There will be scarring, I’m afraid, and possibly some vision loss. You shouldn’t have left it so long without treatment.”

“Talon didn’t exactly let me hold on to my biotics,” McCree grouses.

From her spot on the counter, Ana laughs, one sharp _hah_. “I suppose now we match, Jesse.” He tips his hat in her direction, only to remember Angela’d just plucked it off. He finds it next to him on the cot and slots it back into place.

Meanwhile, Angela stands and heads to the sink, pulling off her gloves only to put on a new pair. “Gabriel,” she says.

“Don’t call me that,” he grates out without looking at her.

“Reaper, then. Whatever the case, I need to examine you.”

Amélie rolls her eyes. “Oh, here we go again...” she mutters.

“He’s fine,” McCree cuts in. “Seen him heal from a headshot at point blank range.” And if he was the one doing the shooting, well, they don’t need to know that.

“The issue is not with his health,” Angela replies, “Though of course I’m curious... –But no, my concern is for the base’s safety. We found several tracking devices on—er, Widowmaker here. It’s unlikely that she is the only one with such precautions applied to her.”

“Well she’s right about that one. They did sniff us out at the motel, after all.”

But Reyes is scowling at her with narrowed eyes, looking about ready to bolt.

McCree turns to Angela. “Can y’all just give us some space for a sec?”

Her brow creases, but she nods and retreats to the other side of the room to talk quietly with Ana.

He  sits himself down next to Reyes and says, “Listen, y’came this far, just let her give you a once-over so she’ll stop hovering.”

“It’s not too late,” he grouses, “I can go back to Talon, give them the intel I’ve gathered...”

“Well sure you could, but you’re not goin’ to, because, one, LaCroix’s here, and two, you said it yourself: you’re tired. Ain’t no one at Talon gonna watch your back.”

Reyes looks from him to Amélie. She gives the two of them a look McCree can’t read, but it causes Reyes to say, “Fine,” and strip off his ridiculous cape jacket.

McCree rises and sidles over to Angela. “Y’ve got five minutes, tops,” he tells her.

“Thank you, Jesse,” she says, grabbing her tablet and striding over to Reyes.

For his part, McCree hangs back with Ana. After a moment she says, “I didn’t think it could be done. Somehow you still manage to surprise me.”

“Thank you ma’am, but I was just there at the right time, s’all. He would’ve come in anyway, once he found out LaCroix was here.”

Ana hums thoughtfully. “They’ve been through a lot together.”

“I reckon they have.” McCree follows her gaze to where Amélie is sitting, knees tucked up to her chin under the hospital blanket. “How’d you get her to come in?”

“Privileged information. Snipers only. Sorry, Jesse.”

McCree smirks. “Can’t wait to see you explain it to Hanzo Shimada, then.”

The only response he gets to that is Ana wrinkling her nose, and he tries not to snort.


	6. A Return, Continued

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> split this into its own chapter for...obvious reasons
> 
> heed the warnings i guess

He’s not at all surprised to find himself being jostled awake at 3 in the morning by Reyes, still leaking smoke from crawling under the door.

“Y’could just knock, like a normal person.”

“I never bothered when I was alive, and I’m not about to start now.”

It’s on the tip of McCree’s tongue to protest, but Reyes is looming over him with that old glint in his eyes that means trouble.

“Y’need somethin’?” McCree asks, sitting up fully.

“I’m here to test your resolve, agent.” There’s a glint in his eye that has McCree reaching blindly for his prosthetic, and it takes him all of five seconds to remember why it’s not in the usual place on his bedside table.

“Reyes—“ he starts, but the man is looming over him, one clawed finger pressed to his lips. And his other hand—

McCree yelps as the gloves’ sharp tips gouge at his chest, scoring deep lines across the skin. “What’re you—“

He feels Reye’s breath hot against his ear. “It’s okay,” he says, and McCree can hear the smile in his voice. “I have biotics.”

Something about the way he says it has McCree swallowing heavily, and while he sits there slack-jawed Reyes pushes him onto his back.

The marks he raised on McCree’s skin are already starting to bleed, not really hurting yet, but he can feel  liquid cooling in the temperature-controlled room. Reyes’ eyes are fixed there, and McCree tries very hard not to think about how this looks, with him half-naked and Reyes straddling him.

So fixed is he on this train of thought that he doesn’t notice what Reyes is up to until the man raises a hand, carefully carving four long lines from the opposite side, leaving McCree’s heaving chest a crisscross of red.

Reyes surveys his work and says, “Good. But not enough. I need a mortal wound. Think you’re up for it, McCree?”

To his credit, he doesn’t immediately say no. The thought of something going wrong passes through his mind, of actually dying and the old guard finding them like that, pinning it on Reyes because McCree wouldn’t be there to tell them he asked for it... But McCree’s never been one to back down from a challenge, especially a potentially deadly one. And the way Reyes is looking at him, like he needs this, and the cluster of biotic capsules and patches Reyes set on the bedside table at some point, and Angela downstairs with her far more powerful stationary Caduceus—well.

“All right, show me what you can do.”

Reyes shakes his head wryly, and responds by tilting McCree’s head up and biting into the exposed skin of his neck.

McCree goes rigid, letting out a pained groan. This isn’t some pulp novel vampire bite, it’s a man with the strength of a bear ripping off a chunk of his flesh—

Reyes wipes his mouth off, looking pleased with himself, and it’s then that McCree feels the hot gush of blood against his shoulder. He reaches up reflexively to try and figure out the extent of the damage, and Reyes holds his hand there, applying pressure.

“Sorry about the sheets,” he says, and McCree tries to laugh. It comes out weak and watery, and Reyes’ face goes from hungry to soft so fast that McCree has the sudden urge to reassure him, even though _he_ should be the one needing reassuring.

“’S’all good,” McCree tells him, though the action shoots pain through his jaw. Everything’s starting to hurt like it probably should have a few minutes ago. Still, he’s got to ask. “I’m bleeding out?”

Reyes hesitates a second before answering, “Yes.” His eyes keep drifting from McCree’s eyes to where their hands are pressed together over his neck. Somehow McCree hadn’t noticed before, but the smoke that sometimes clings to him is all around them, licking at the edges of McCree’s wounds, numbing where it touches and sizzling like steam off of Reyes’ skin.

And maybe it’s not just that black smoke but the darkness in the corners of his vision, because he’s starting to feel fuzzy and numb all over, barely feeling his own tongue as he tries to get some moisture onto his lips. “Listen,” he says, and he’s not so far gone yet that he can’t hear how his voice slurs. “If somethin’ happens—“

“Shut up, McCree,” Reyes rumbles. His other hand rests on McCree’s chest, just over his struggling heart. Time feels slow and thick, and McCree has time enough to study every facet of Reyes’ face, every scar old and new, though not many new. Because of his...condition.

Then time is speeding up again, his breath coming fast and shallow, Reyes’ skin searing hot and thrumming with vitality, and McCree tries to feel afraid of dying instead of itchingly hot and cold by turns.

And maybe he just imagines the soft press of dry lips against his own before he passes out, but a small, smug part of him doubts it.


End file.
